How to duplicate Ubuntu OS?
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I hope this is not going to be called programming question, but I am running out of non AI forums to post this.( This forum Linux subforum is of no help - this is not programming issue ) I just had a total "no boot" failure of my grub file - working multi-operating system. ( Total power outage / failure caused this) Ever since I started using Linux Ubuntu I have been unable to figure out HOW TO MAKE FULL DUPLICATE of perfectly working OS. ( Using "DD" command did not work!) I have several HD, space in no issue. I was hoping use something likes RAID to do this. I am well aware of RAID issues, but I am desperate to have this resolved before another catastrophic failure. PS This time my working grub recovered because another , non used , but operational Ubuntu grub file was "updated/ upgraded".
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I hope this is not going to be called programming question, but I am running out of non AI forums to post this.( This forum Linux subforum is of no help - this is not programming issue ) I just had a total "no boot" failure of my grub file - working multi-operating system. ( Total power outage / failure caused this) Ever since I started using Linux Ubuntu I have been unable to figure out HOW TO MAKE FULL DUPLICATE of perfectly working OS. ( Using "DD" command did not work!) I have several HD, space in no issue. I was hoping use something likes RAID to do this. I am well aware of RAID issues, but I am desperate to have this resolved before another catastrophic failure. PS This time my working grub recovered because another , non used , but operational Ubuntu grub file was "updated/ upgraded".
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I hope this is not going to be called programming question, but I am running out of non AI forums to post this.( This forum Linux subforum is of no help - this is not programming issue ) I just had a total "no boot" failure of my grub file - working multi-operating system. ( Total power outage / failure caused this) Ever since I started using Linux Ubuntu I have been unable to figure out HOW TO MAKE FULL DUPLICATE of perfectly working OS. ( Using "DD" command did not work!) I have several HD, space in no issue. I was hoping use something likes RAID to do this. I am well aware of RAID issues, but I am desperate to have this resolved before another catastrophic failure. PS This time my working grub recovered because another , non used , but operational Ubuntu grub file was "updated/ upgraded".
There are many packages out there that can duplicate an entire partition or an entire disk. Many of them have a version that can be installed on a boot CD (or USB drive). OriginalGriff swears by AOMEI (runs on Windows, or from a Windows PE boot disk), but there are others. AIUI, the grub is not part of any partition, so duplicating the partition is insufficient to recover the O/S. It is better to duplicate the entire disk, assuming that you have space available. As far as recovering the grub is concerned, I would assume that you start from a boot CD (or USB drive) containing the appropriate version of Ubuntu, but I'm unsure as to how to progress from there. :~
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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I hope this is not going to be called programming question, but I am running out of non AI forums to post this.( This forum Linux subforum is of no help - this is not programming issue ) I just had a total "no boot" failure of my grub file - working multi-operating system. ( Total power outage / failure caused this) Ever since I started using Linux Ubuntu I have been unable to figure out HOW TO MAKE FULL DUPLICATE of perfectly working OS. ( Using "DD" command did not work!) I have several HD, space in no issue. I was hoping use something likes RAID to do this. I am well aware of RAID issues, but I am desperate to have this resolved before another catastrophic failure. PS This time my working grub recovered because another , non used , but operational Ubuntu grub file was "updated/ upgraded".
Relax blend in. Veeam Agent is your friend. No matter what the OS. 4 letter word beginning with F: Free. (community). Clonezilla is also good.
>64 It’s weird being the same age as old people. Live every day like it is your last; one day, it will be.
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I hope this is not going to be called programming question, but I am running out of non AI forums to post this.( This forum Linux subforum is of no help - this is not programming issue ) I just had a total "no boot" failure of my grub file - working multi-operating system. ( Total power outage / failure caused this) Ever since I started using Linux Ubuntu I have been unable to figure out HOW TO MAKE FULL DUPLICATE of perfectly working OS. ( Using "DD" command did not work!) I have several HD, space in no issue. I was hoping use something likes RAID to do this. I am well aware of RAID issues, but I am desperate to have this resolved before another catastrophic failure. PS This time my working grub recovered because another , non used , but operational Ubuntu grub file was "updated/ upgraded".
I understand that the OP intends to reload the backed up OS to the same machine. Then a backup might work, as long as the hardware is completely unchanged. Usually, the binary OS running on a machine is closely tailored to the hardware, e.g. the selection of drivers. It doesn't carry drivers it doesn't need. Say that a lightening hit your internet line (presumably a metallic one, not a fiber); the high voltage made it all the way to your network interface and blew it. So you replace the broken interface with a new one, of a different model. Your OS doesn't have a driver for it, preventing you from retrieving the correct driver from internet. Or if the lightening spike went through your power supply and hit your disk, and you replace it with a newer model, requiring a different driver. The OS lacks the driver to boot itself from the disk, even if the complete OS (but with the old disk driver) is available. Fortunately, hardware interfaces have become much more standardized today than 20 years ago. E.g. no USB memory stick requires any special driver. Yet our PCs run numerous hardware dependent drivers. Even though your PC may boot, some essential equipment may fail to operate with the backup OS. Years ago, after buying a new mainboard for my PC (transferring a lot of stuff from the old one - this was in the days when you had plug-in cards for everything), I tried to take a shortcut, loading the total backup I had made before throwing out the old mainboard. It "sort of" booted, but lots of stuff didn't work (even though it was unchanged; it probably had been assigned other interrupts something of that kind), and the OS bluescreened several times before I gave up and went through a complete OS installation from scratch. There are also those software packages (OS or other) that reads some machine identification, such as a CPU ID or a hash of the IDs of peripheral IDs, and refuse to run if you try to install the backup on another CPU or configuration. A couple of Windows versions did this. If you added another hard disk to your PC, you had to call Microsoft service to receive another activation code for the new configuration. This was so annoying that it was first loosened a lot, then removed completely. I don't expect anything of that kind with Linux, though. But even if the OS core is free, there is a lot of commercial software running on Linux, and the vendors may use such mechanisms to prevent unauthorized use of their software.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that tw
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I hope this is not going to be called programming question, but I am running out of non AI forums to post this.( This forum Linux subforum is of no help - this is not programming issue ) I just had a total "no boot" failure of my grub file - working multi-operating system. ( Total power outage / failure caused this) Ever since I started using Linux Ubuntu I have been unable to figure out HOW TO MAKE FULL DUPLICATE of perfectly working OS. ( Using "DD" command did not work!) I have several HD, space in no issue. I was hoping use something likes RAID to do this. I am well aware of RAID issues, but I am desperate to have this resolved before another catastrophic failure. PS This time my working grub recovered because another , non used , but operational Ubuntu grub file was "updated/ upgraded".
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If you have the drives and your concern is just having backups/never really having the machine down, just slap three in there in RAID0+1 and call it awesome. You could just go RAID 1, but you'll get a slight performance bonus the first way.
Thanks for all constructive suggestions. I need to add - I have NEVER figured out how Ubuntu works as multi OS system. I believe it starts with UEFI (hardware) setup which shows multiple "Ubuntu" boot entries. They are all named same -"Ubuntu" - and I have FOUR of them. I believe these "Ubuntu" actually points /links with corresponding "grub" files. Unfortunately there is no way to identify WHERE, in which HD these "grub" files are. At least to my knowledge. My past experience doing "DD" created another "grub" totally unrelated to "grub" I was trying to duplicate. I have another fish to fry, software issue, but I will give RAID another try.
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Thanks for all constructive suggestions. I need to add - I have NEVER figured out how Ubuntu works as multi OS system. I believe it starts with UEFI (hardware) setup which shows multiple "Ubuntu" boot entries. They are all named same -"Ubuntu" - and I have FOUR of them. I believe these "Ubuntu" actually points /links with corresponding "grub" files. Unfortunately there is no way to identify WHERE, in which HD these "grub" files are. At least to my knowledge. My past experience doing "DD" created another "grub" totally unrelated to "grub" I was trying to duplicate. I have another fish to fry, software issue, but I will give RAID another try.
Haha I've only recently even started to touch Linux again. Prior to that, I'm not even sure it was Linux I was messing with but def *nix something. (ISP shells and SLIP) The general idea of "ain't nobody got time fo dat" = RAID. The plug n play of pi was pretty nice and I managed to get remoting from my windows box into it to work as well as some other stuff.
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Haha I've only recently even started to touch Linux again. Prior to that, I'm not even sure it was Linux I was messing with but def *nix something. (ISP shells and SLIP) The general idea of "ain't nobody got time fo dat" = RAID. The plug n play of pi was pretty nice and I managed to get remoting from my windows box into it to work as well as some other stuff.
If I may, I like to change the OP. I believe that the idea of duplicating OS is too risky. I attempted to load long unused version of Ubuntu, update/upgrade it and then try to duplicate that instead of my WORKING version. Run into big setback - had to use grub "recovery" and found out that the grub entry identified by /dev has several versions - nether one won't run unless in recovery mode. So my next task find a real document covering UEFI -> Ubuntu "boot files " Ubuntu "grub" file ubuntu /dev/xxx version schemes each individual grub option "normal" recovery etc. and mainly how does Ubuntu actually name each version and how the obsolete / failing to boot version can be safely identified and removed So any RTFM to cover above ? I am not looking for "list of Ubuntu commands " book... AND IF THIS IS WRONG PLACE TO POST THIS REQUEST I GIVE UP This post was not build with an aid of AI. pps I will not "Ask Ubuntu" or elsewhere governed by AI management.
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I hope this is not going to be called programming question, but I am running out of non AI forums to post this.( This forum Linux subforum is of no help - this is not programming issue ) I just had a total "no boot" failure of my grub file - working multi-operating system. ( Total power outage / failure caused this) Ever since I started using Linux Ubuntu I have been unable to figure out HOW TO MAKE FULL DUPLICATE of perfectly working OS. ( Using "DD" command did not work!) I have several HD, space in no issue. I was hoping use something likes RAID to do this. I am well aware of RAID issues, but I am desperate to have this resolved before another catastrophic failure. PS This time my working grub recovered because another , non used , but operational Ubuntu grub file was "updated/ upgraded".
doesn't apply too much to me these days, but if possible I'd move into VMs. Keep your base iron as simple and as clean as possible. Before I started using VMs a lot, early 2000s, I was working one morning from home, shut my laptop down, went into the lab and begun starting at a dead laptop. Lost the hard drive (spinner) with zero warning. One week later of non-billable time, I had the laptop back in operation where I wedded a disk duplicator. I had a Dell Inspiron at the time, so popping out the SATA drive was trivial, popped it into my disk duplicator - which created pure images - and I've never lost a drive since. The duplicators have finally advanced to support nvme. I don't want my OS back, I want ALL of the s/w as well. As for software, I've tried a number of packages, and the problem I've had is that: a) slow. I can image a full drive in under 20 minutes. I've seen software run for many, many hours. b) the live backup, I've lost files due to some being in use. I lost confidence. Now that I've moved on to virtual machines, backups are trivial. Stop the machine, copy the folder to my USB drive, start the machine. I use VMWare Workstation which has been quite stable for me with the one exception when an upgrade confused my machines (silly error on VMware's part, took me months to find).
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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I hope this is not going to be called programming question, but I am running out of non AI forums to post this.( This forum Linux subforum is of no help - this is not programming issue ) I just had a total "no boot" failure of my grub file - working multi-operating system. ( Total power outage / failure caused this) Ever since I started using Linux Ubuntu I have been unable to figure out HOW TO MAKE FULL DUPLICATE of perfectly working OS. ( Using "DD" command did not work!) I have several HD, space in no issue. I was hoping use something likes RAID to do this. I am well aware of RAID issues, but I am desperate to have this resolved before another catastrophic failure. PS This time my working grub recovered because another , non used , but operational Ubuntu grub file was "updated/ upgraded".
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I always use GParted and copy paste all partitions to another disk. Just remember to edit the flags of EFI system partition after the copy. For some reason the flags change when you copy.
jhaga
Gparted ?? That seems to be dead , abandoned tool. I have several HD and if the drive is larger than 1TB Gparted takes its sweet time to recognize ALL partitions. The most annoying - after every executed change - GParted scans ALL again... Just by comparison - fdisk is Mach 5 speed to Gparted turtle. Ah yah, you can "dismount" but you cannot get back on the horse... Enough for rude comments....
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Gparted ?? That seems to be dead , abandoned tool. I have several HD and if the drive is larger than 1TB Gparted takes its sweet time to recognize ALL partitions. The most annoying - after every executed change - GParted scans ALL again... Just by comparison - fdisk is Mach 5 speed to Gparted turtle. Ah yah, you can "dismount" but you cannot get back on the horse... Enough for rude comments....
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Perhaps I am on wrong planet- I was under the impression this forum, in particular, was in existence to help solve problems. I guess I am wrong ... again. But I do appreciate your post for staying on the subject and you not telling me to RTFM or "get an new one ". Hope somebody will take "the first baby step" to start the mentioned pages leading to solution. PS Just went thru few "fsck" to fully (?) recover from the grub failure...
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Perhaps I am on wrong planet
Hey you finally said something accurate.
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I was under the impression this forum, in particular, was in existence to help solve problems.
That's where you're wrong. The lounge is clearly marked as a SOCIAL forum. There are other forums for questions. Yes, on occasion, you'll see us answer questions but it's usually with people we know that do not abuse the system. That ain't you dude. Ever since you've been here you've done nothing but abuse it with provided no value in return. Which is fine, but go to the forums. We've only said this over and over. So, if you don't understand this point then its because you simply do not care. Just don't be surprised when you have zero friends bro.
Jeremy Falcon